The evolution of Robert Downey Jr: A timeline from brat pack to Marvel’s new Doctor Doom

The actor, who overcame a turbulent period to reach unprecedented highs, is set to return to the MCU as a different character than Iron Man

Robert Downey Jr revealed as Doctor Doom onstage at the Marvel Studios Panel during 2024 Comic-Con International at San Diego Convention Center. Photo: Getty Images via AFP

At 59 years old, actor Robert Downey Jr is undeniably at the peak of his powers.

This year alone, he accepted his first Academy Award for Oppenheimer, itself one of the highest-grossing films of the decade, then played four different roles in the acclaimed HBO series The Sympathizer.

If that wasn't enough, he's now been tasked with saving the Marvel Cinematic Universe, 16 years after sending it into the stratosphere. Variety reported he's being paid “significantly more” than $80 million to play Doctor Doom, the villain in the two upcoming Avengers films, titled Doomsday and Secret Wars.

With Hollywood placed firmly on his back, it's easy to forget, now that he is a pillar of the industry, just how tumultuous a life and career Downey Jr has had, and how hard he had to work to pull himself up to the point he's reached now.

With that in mind, let's venture back through the highs and lows that shaped one of the world's most dynamic performers, as well as make an educated guess on what the future has in store for him.

1965 to 1982: Early life

Downey Jr's formative years are key to understanding what makes him who he is.

He made that clear on the Oscars stage earlier this year, accepting his first Academy Award with the words: “I'd like to thank my terrible childhood and the Academy, in that order.”

The actor had anything but a standard upbringing. His father, Robert Downey Sr, worked in the film industry and directed movies from the 1950 to the 1990s, sometimes garnering financial and critical success, but often not. While Putney Swope, released in 1969, has gone on to become a cult classic, heavily influencing director Paul Thomas Anderson's film Boogie Nights, his work is still mostly obscure in mainstream circles.

Downey Jr appeared in some of his father’s films, first in 1970s Pound at the age of five and in 1972’s Greaser's Palace at the age of seven.

Robert Downey Sr, Rosemary Rogers and Robert Downey Jr together for a documentary shoot in 2022. Photo: Netflix

While being surrounded by creatives clearly influenced Downey Jr to pursue the arts, being brought up in that world also had its drawbacks. Both of his parents suffered from addiction issues.

The actor has previously spoken about being surrounded by illicit substances from a young age, even saying that partaking with his father, “was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how”, something that would come to plague him later in life.

While Downey Jr's relationship with Downey Sr has been strained at times, the two maintained a strong bond until his death in 2021 and made amends for his difficult childhood, as displayed in the acclaimed 2022 Netflix documentary Sr., which Downey Jr produced and starred in alongside his father.

1983 – 1989: working actor and comedian

Downey Jr’s career began in earnest in minor roles in films directed by John Sayles, Michael Apted and John Hughes, which earned him an early reputation as a tertiary member of the “Brat Pack”, the loosely-defined crew of dynamic young performers who performed together in coming-of-age films, which also included actors such as Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, James Spader and Rob Lowe.

Even as an emerging talent, Downey Jr seemed distinct from his contemporaries, with a quick wit and unique persona that were early signs that there were bigger things in store for the young actor.

He also showed an early forte for comedy, even joining the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1985, appearing in 16 episodes across two seasons, tools that would prove especially useful in later roles such as 2008's Tropic Thunder.

From the mid to late 1980s, Downey Jr would continue to appear in comedies, most notably Back to School in 1986 starring legendary comedian Rodney Dangerfield, and the Brat Pack-aligned film Less Than Zero, an adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the same name.

1990 – 1994: First Oscar nomination

The 1990s would begin very well for Downey Jr, first co-starring in Air America alongside Mel Gibson, a comedy action film set in Laos during the Vietnam War. A year later, he would appear in Soapdish alongside a star-studded cast that included Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Whoopi Goldberg and Teri Hatcher.

But it was his next move that would elevate him above his contemporaries and make it clear to many he was one of the best and most versatile performers of his generation.

In 1992, Downey Jr starred in a biopic directed by Richard Attenborough about the life of the timeless comedic actor Charlie Chaplin. The film would earn three Academy Award nominations, one of which was a Best Actor in Leading Role for Downey Jr. The Oscar went to Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman but the nomination alone cemented Downey Jr's reputation.

In his review, then-Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert wrote, “Robert Downey Jr succeeds almost uncannily in playing Chaplin; the physical resemblance is convincing, but better is the way Downey Jr captures Chaplin's spirit, even in costume as the Tramp”.

In 1994, he displayed both his talent and eccentricity in Natural Born Killers, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis. Ahead of filming the Quentin Tarantino-penned film, Downey Jr went to Australia, coming back with a freshly-honed Australian accent which he convinced Stone to let him use in the film. Despite The Guardian ranking it as one of the worst Australian accents in film history, he used it again years later in Tropic Thunder to fewer critical complaints.

1996 – 2001: Addiction struggles and arrests

A childhood of being comfortable around drugs and bad habits caught up with Downey Jr by 1996. At that point, his behaviour became increasingly worrisome due to encounters with the law for substance abuse. Early that year, his friends, actors Sean Penn and Dennis Quaid, became concerned for him and decided to check him into a rehab centre.

The efforts were seemingly to no avail, as in June of that year, he was arrested for possession of drugs and a firearm while speeding in Los Angeles. A month later, while under the influence, he would wander into a neighbour’s house in Malibu and sleep in one of their beds. The episode would be dubbed by the media as the ‘Goldilocks incident’, after the famous bedtime story.

A mug shot of Robert Downey Jr taken at the California Department of Corrections on 25 September 1999. Getty Images

The incident did not derail his career completely, as in 1998, Downey Jr starred in US Marshals, a sequel to the popular action film The Fugitive. In the film, he plays a law enforcement agent who is on the hunt for Wesley Snipes' character, aided by Tommy Lee Jones and his team.

But Downey Jr's troubles would come to a head in 1999 as he would relapse after regular rehab attempts and was struggling to pay legal bill costs, even after selling his home in Malibu. The actor would be sentenced to spend three years at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison.

After spending almost a year in the facility, Downey Jr was freed and would join the cast of the hit television series Ally McBeal, which earned him an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe win.

Unfortunately for him, Downey Jr would be arrested twice again, first in late 2000 and second in April 2001. Downey Jr would spend a year in a drug treatment facility, by which time he had become homeless and too much of a liability to employ.

2003 – 2007: Gradual comeback

After his legal troubles and constant attempts to stay sober, Downey Jr mounted a return to acting. After appearing in The Singing Detective, he starred in Gothika alongside Halle Berry and Penelope Cruz, a critical dud and box office hit which found him in a supporting role and renewed his momentum.

Two years later, he appeared in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang alongside Val Kilmer, a role that directly played off his experience with substance abuse and the law. The film became a cult hit, and a key turning point for the performer, as it placed him back into the role of leading man, and reminded audiences of his unique charm and sizeable acting chops, setting him on a pathway to bigger things.

He also made a return to prestige in David Fincher’s Zodiac, playing a reporter who also deals with substance abuse. It was becoming clear by then that Downey Jr was able to tap into his darkest experiences in life and translate them into on-screen magic, with audiences invested in his characters' struggles because they knew how much they mirrored reality.

2008 – 2019: Iron Man and second Oscar nomination

As Marvel Studios were attempting to kick-start a new series of films depicting the famous superheroes in their roster, they needed an actor to lead their efforts as well as the eventual Avengers team on film.

Audiences today most closely associate Downey Jr with the Iron Man role, but in 2008, both him and Marvel were making a risky bet. For Marvel, they were taking the chance on an actor who had long periods of substance dependency and were hoping he would be dedicated enough to stay focused on the task, especially if it took off.

Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr, kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe's continued success. Photo: Marvel

For Downey Jr, there was a risk in taking a superhero role. The genre had not reached the heights we've come to see in recent years, and portraying a character not as famous as Superman, Batman or Spider-Man could have harmed his career if not executed well, a fate that befell some of his contemporaries in the 2000s.

Luckily for all involved, and a new legion of adoring audiences, the bet paid off. The first Iron Man film, in which Downey played the titular character also known as Tony Stark, was an incredible box office success for Marvel, grossing over $500 million globally, and more importantly established the seeds of an expanded universe that continues to thrive today.

The role worked in part because, even in an unrealistic world, Downey Jr's Stark always felt grounded, thanks in part because it, too, seemed to reflect a lot of Downey Jr's real-life journey. Stark was also had a troubled past, a frayed relationship with his father, obvious brilliance and untapped potential.

Because audiences saw little distinction between the character and the man who played him, they were invested even further, making Downey Jr invaluable. It's a formula that Marvel has since repeated with Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, for instance.

By 2019, Downey Jr would portray the character in 10 films, ending with the character’s death in Avengers: Endgame. During that time, he became the face of the franchise and gave fans unforgettable performances as the billionaire-turned-hero.

At the beginning of his Marvel stint, Downey Jr also starred in Tropic Thunder alongside Ben Stiller and Jack Black. His performance as Kirk Lazarus earned him his second Academy Award nomination, losing the Oscar to Heath Ledger’s Joker performance in The Dark Knight, awarded posthumously.

Other notable films during this period include two appearances as Sherlock Holmes alongside Jude Law in the two films directed by Guy Ritchie, his other box office hits of this era, as well as the moderately successful Due Date (2010) with Zach Galifianakis and The Judge (2014) with Robert Duvall.

2023 – today: Oscar win and Marvel return

After his final appearance as Iron Man, Downey Jr delivered his most critically celebrated performance to date in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The film swept at the 2024 Academy Awards and gave Downey Jr his first Oscar win for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.

His restrained performance as Strauss brought to life a malicious and calculated personality sitting rotten beneath a polite and kind exterior. For Downey Jr, the character represented something of an antithesis to his Iron Man character, whose brash exterior hid a heart of gold.

Downey Jr would then team up with Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook for the HBO television series The Sympathizer, his first return to television since his award-winning performance on Ally McBeal. In the show, Downey Jr portrays multiple characters, drastically changing appearance for each.

Despite critical acclaim for Downey Jr's performance and the series overall, it was not a huge hit with audiences, leading Downey Jr to a conundrum faced by many Marvel stars – how do you remain as big a draw outside of Marvel?

Robert Downey Jr as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer, a role which won him his first Academy Award after three nominations. Photo: Universal

Many thought that, after his Oscars win and more than a decade of huge Marvel paychecks, Downey Jr would stop caring about that kind of stardom entirely, and that Oppenheimer was a signal that he was back to being the serious actor he once was, eschewing popcorn fare henceforth.

Downey Jr might have encouraged such assumptions, as he has acknowledged that he did not exercise his acting muscles during his Marvel years, even saying that his Golden Globes win was “a most-improved-player thing” in his acceptance speech.

But then, to the shock of the world, he took the stage at San Diego Comic Con at the weekend to announce in dramatic fashion that he would return to the MCU as a different character, the villain Doctor Doom, for the upcoming Avengers films.

The future of Downey Jr – will he ever return to the Oscars stage?

So, with his return to Avengers incoming, has the actor given up on returning to smaller, more auteur-driven content? That remains to be seen. But because it was Marvel that elevated him from a troubled actor toiling through his comeback phase to the top tier of Hollywood, it makes sense why he feels more comfortable with studio-tentpole fare than festival and awards-geared films.

Downey Jr himself spoke to Entertainment Weekly Radio about doing low-budget indie films in 2015, which offers fascinating insight into his mentality on the subject: “Because they’re exhausting and sometimes they suck and then you just go, ‘What was I thinking?’ But I’m interested in doing all different kinds of movies. Sometimes the little movies are the ones that wind up taking the most out of you because they’re like, ‘Hey, man, we’re just running a couple of days behind. Do you think you can stay through your birthday and then come back on the fourth of July?

“And, by the way, but, like, the crew – can you pay for the craft services? And, oh, by the way, man, when we go to Sundance, it’s like, can we just sit you in a chair and you can sell this for six days in a row so that we’ll make 180 bucks when it opens in one theatre? God, this is so powerful what we’re doing. What do you think of the movie? You saw it last night?’”

There is likely still another Oscar-worthy performance from Downey Jr to come, but judging from how much difficulty he finds in doing smaller projects, it seems those sorts of efforts will be few and far between, and he'll be sticking with collaborators he trusts, such as Christopher Nolan, and choosing prestige films that also come with a big budget.

While we may see him at Cannes Film Festival, which has often featured the debut of studio fare with Oscars aspirations, it doesn't seem like a return to Sundance is to be expected.

And we may see more films in the same vein as Sherlock Holmes, as he is as comfortable in big-budget tentpoles as is his peer Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

And as to whether he will be sticking with Marvel in some capacity, to quote Deadpool from Deadpool & Wolverine: “They're gonna make him do this till he's 90!”